From time to time, members have requested dough recipes that can be practiced within a few hours. These recipes are sometimes referred to as “emergency”, “short-time” or “short-term” dough recipes. I will refer to such recipes collectively in this writing as “emergency” dough recipes. Typically, the emergency doughs are made and used in a period of up to about four hours and the doughs are usually fermented at room temperature. On occasion, a combination of room temperature fermentation and cold fermentation can be used. In most cases, emergency doughs use a lot more yeast than used to make normal doughs and a water temperature that is considerably higher than used to make normal doughs. However, there can be variations, as noted in many of the dough formulations referenced in this thread.

For the convenience and benefit of those members who are interested in emergency dough recipes, I have attempted to collect and categorize by style some of the more notable ones of such recipes that I have identified over time. I have not attempted to find and link every emergency dough recipe ever posted on this forum although I am willing to revise this document as other worthy emergency dough recipes come, or are brought, to my attention. For those recipes that I could not specifically identify by style, I have simply labeled as “General”. In some cases, there are multiple versions of the recipes noted and they are often scattered throughout a thread and developed piecemeal over time. That means that people will have to read the threads to find the recipe or version that best meets their particular needs. I have not attempted to single out every version of a particular emergency dough recipe or to rewrite any such recipe or adapt it to a particular situation. My only goal was to create a compilation of some of the more notable emergency dough recipes.

That you for the great resources Peter, I need to get studying all of them.

Norma,

You should keep in mind that professionals don't make their core pizza products from an emergency dough. I am sure that it happens from time to time, but most pizza operators who use emergency doughs tend to have two dough formulations--their regular one and an emergency version of the regular formulation that they can use when they run out of their regular dough or there is a power failure that renders their regular dough unusable, etc. That way, their customers are unlikely to notice that there was a dough shift. I posted the compilation mainly for our members who make pizza at home and might like to try different kinds of pizzas on short notice. Their emergency is more likely to be unstoppable hunger pangs that can only be remedied by a quick pizza fix. However, reading the dough formulations I listed in the compilation will teach you a lot about how emergency doughs are made, particularly how the formulations call for far above average amounts of yeast and much warmer dough temperatures.

mix all the dry, then add the water/oil with a temp of around 90. mixed it by spoon until it was about 80% incorporated, then threw it on a floured counter and kneaded it for about 6 minutes. split it into two balls, place into lightly oiled bowls (i used soybean oil spray) and covered them with plastic wrap. 3.5 hours later, dough was doubled. floured the counter again, and spun out one 14" and one 16". i used 20oz doughballs roughly. topped it with jo-de sauce (stanislaus of some sort) shredded mozz, colby jack, and parm/romano (the dark 'burnt' spots) are from the parm/romano. wish my phone saved the picture of the crumb, it looked fantastic for a 3.5 hour rise.

I normally make my pizza doughs 2-3 days in advance. but wanted to try a sameday pizza dough, different texture and my wife really likes it. next time I try this recipe I will see how it works for a Neopolitan style crust, today's crust was more of a pan type dough about 3/8" thick, excellent oven spring.

For an Emergency-dough the most important thing is that you use a flour with a very low W like W200 or around that!If you use a Manitoba flour, the W is going to be 280 at least and if you don't give it at least a 24 hour maturation and rising time it's going to be indigestible !!!

That is a good point--one that Marco (pizzanapoletana) often made with respect to doughs that were not fermented long enough. Indigestion is one of the tradeoffs when you want a pizza in a hurry. We have some members who actually prefer emergency dough pizzas on their own merits. Most people like emergency pizzas because they can be made on short notice to meet a need or simply for convenience.

I've been making a lot of deep dish pizzas lately. So much so, that when I invited my parents over for pizza this week, my mother (who apparently can't handle any more deep dish ) requested a "traditional" pizza. Since I started my pizza adventures with this site, I have not made anything but deep dish and a couple (and I really do mean a couple) "nearly-politan" pies. So I've been in a little bit of a panic. How do I make a "traditional" pizza? I started scouring the site for recipes that could be made in a hurry so that I could get a couple test runs in before Friday.

Now the Minneapolis/St. Paul area isn't known for its NY-Style, but we do have a few imitators, which I occasionally enjoy. I'm not going to pretend to know what "TRUE" NY-Style is supposed to be, but I have a general idea. And I've been doing a lot of research here in the past few days. I decided that one of these "Emergency" doughs would have to do for now. After much deliberation, I decided to try a variation on c0mpl3x's formulation above.

Note #1: The oil at 4% was actually an accident. I mis-read my weights and added a bit too much, which I retro-calculated back to about 4%. Note #2: I've been reading many posts about VWG and decided to add some... It was really a spur-of-the-moment decision, after I had calc'd my weights. The box said to add 1T to any bread recipe. I decided not to get too technical and just threw in 1T.

I was making a 14" pie with a TF of 0.1. After proofing the yeast, combining the dry ingredients, and adding the wet to the dry, I mixed everything in my KitchenAid for 6 minutes on speed [2]. After a 20-minute rest, I mixed again for 4 minutes, except this time, I would insert 15-second intervals of high-speed mixing... a technique I remember watching in a video posted for a member here as a tutorial of how to get nice gluten formation for Ciabatta and Neapolitan pies. I did a warm-oven rise for 90 minutes, a punch-down, and another 45-minute rise. (During the second rise, I removed the dough from the oven and began pre-heating my stone on full-blast.)

(Pic1) shows my working station. I don't have a peel. I just don't make enough on-stone pizzas to justify it at this point. I used a semolina-dusted metal baking sheet and have no serious complaints. Also-pictured: homemade tomato sauce, a store-bought blend of provolone and Motz cheese, and Hormel pepperoni. (Pic2) is my skin. It was actually pretty difficult to stretch, but with persistence, I finally turned it out into a 14" disk. (Pic3) shows the dressed skin.

(Pic4) After I slid the pie on the stone, I reduced the heat to 450, which probably had little-to-no effect, since most of the heat was coming from the stone. I cooked the pie for approximately 5 minutes on the stone, then I threw it under the broiler for *maybe* a minute. (Pic5) is the up-skirt. Decent char marks here and there. (Pic6) Crumb-shot. Wow. Even I'm surprised at how well this turned out. It was nice and chewy. My only complaint is that the portabella mushrooms released a lot more liquid than I expected. When I cook for my parents on Friday, I will likely slice them in half... they were just too much.

So, yeah, I was pretty damn impressed for my first NY-Style pizza. Thanks for the direction, especially c0mpl3x & Peter.

I use the recipe for NY Style dough from the recipe section, but I don't keep it overnight. I usually chill it for a couple of hours tops. It doesn't make a NY style crust this way but the crust it makes is very good - gets a good crunch on the bottom (baked on a preheated stone at the top temp my oven can get to).

I throw all the ingredients in the bucked of my Zo and let it knead for 15 mins, let it rise in there for an hour, then take it out and punch it down, put it in an oiled bowl and turn it a few times to get the dough ball oiled, cover with plastic wrap, and stick in the fridge until an hour or two before I'm ready to bake.

I've discovered I can actually roll this dough out when I'm in a hurry if I do it right out of the fridge and let it come to temp (covered so it won't dry out) already rolled out. Doing it this way we couldn't tell a difference between the hand stretched dough and the rolled and left to warm up that way dough. If you let it come up to temp and then roll it out, it makes a slightly denser crust. My son STILL couldn't tell the difference, but I could tell a slight difference, so henceforth, when I'm in a hurry, I'll roll it out cold, cover, and let rest before baking.

I was planning on pizza tonight and wanted to make one of the Lehman Emergency doughs that I've been using pretty regularly with success. I was using the stand mixer and got distracted when my wife let the dogs out the front and it took me 15 mins to get back to the mixer that was running. The dough was extremely smooth and pretty warm. I split the batch in two, balled andoiled a bowled it. An hour later it hadn't raised a bit. No bubbles. I tossed the dough. Did I overheat it or is there something else about overmixing that would kill the yeast?

Stand down Peter. Going thru what I did last night... in my haste, I believe I put over 1 TABLESPOON of salt in the beer. I recall tasting the beer after I dissolved the salt and sugar into it. It was extremely salty. I'm using the 407 reply Lehman dough doubled.